Raised Garden and Lowe’s GC Giveaway

When we were asked to do any project we wanted around the house, we were thrilled. The hardest part was deciding which project to do first. We considered a closet organizing project, then some kitchen work, but in the end we decided on a raised-bed garden. Don’t you just love the idea of picking your own lettuce right outside the kitchen and making a fresh salad each day? I do!

So here are the details, Lowe’s challenged Mama Latina Tips to use $250 to do anything we wanted and here are the pics:

Here is the raised-bed garden kit we bought laid out on a workbench. This one is 5.5 inches deep. Plenty for our purposes.

It was very simple to put together, just a few screws. Very fast using the electric drill with screwdriver bit.

Here’s a shot of the completed frame. It was so simple. You can just move it to the spot where you want it. Then add soil. Depending on where you live, there will be different types of soils available, here’s what we used (below). Also, depending on the types of critters in your neighborhood, you may want to put some sort of barrier down before adding the soil to keep things like moles from stealing plants by coming up from below your garden. Check with your friendly Lowe’s garden staff. We have used a galvanized mesh in the past. You might also want to put some weed cloth down if you are concerned about weeds coming up. This is also available at Lowe’s. We have placed two layers down to keep the weeds at bay.

And we used a large variety of small starter plants. Most years we start with seeds and then plug seedlings into the garden when they are ready. But this year we had some time constraints, so we started with small plants from Lowe’s.

There are all kinds of plants in this garden- cauliflower, swiss chard, several types of lettuce, green and walla walla onions, celery, cilantro, arugula, collards, dill, cabbage, parsley, the list goes on and on. We just love having a variety of vegetables.

Here is a tip about lettuce you may or may not know: You don’t need to harvest the whole plant at once when you want to make a salad. We just use scissors to cut off a few leaves from a few different plants and the lettuces just keep on giving throughout the season. Love it.

Here is a general link to different types of raised bed gardens for you to see some of the choices at Lowe’s. Remember, a great feature on their web site, and one I recommend using from the beginning, is the select your local store feature which will give product information based on products in your local store.

Win it!

Congratulations Kim!

Lowe’s has generously offered one (1) $100 Lowe’s Gift Card for one lucky Mama Latina Tips Reader! How cool is that? And participating for the chance to win is easy. You just need to leave me a comment telling me about a project you would like to start if you are the winner, that’s it! That is your required entry.

Would you like more opportunities to win? I have a few of those, too! These entries are optional:

(limit: one tweet per day, just please leave me a comment for each with the link of the tweet) 1 entry per tweet.

Please leave me a comment for your required entry and for each option (1,2, 3, 4 and/or 5), so I know how many entries you have, thanks.

This giveaway will end on Friday, November 16th, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. PST. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents only. Winner will be randomly chosen and notified via email. Winner must respond to notification email within 3 days or a new winner will be chosen. Void where prohibited. Entries/Comments that do not follow the submission guidelines will be invalid. Have fun and good luck!

Disclosure: I am a Lowe’s Creative Ideas ambassador and I received a gift card to complete my assignment. As always all comments and opinions are solely my own.